Monsters Vs Aliens: The Kr Chronicles
by sonicking2004
Summary: After a small farming community in Kansas is devastated by a meteor shower, General Monger is convinced that an alien infiltrator used it to come to Earth undetected. After a standard search fails to turn up the invader, however, the General prepares Susan (Ginormica) to go undercover to root out the alien from its hiding place.
1. Chapter 1: The Assignment Begins

**The Assignment Begins**

As Susan got herself ready for the day, she reflected on when she first arrived here. Using the information General Monger had gathered on the way, it didn't take long to find the area where the greatest impact was. Still, the devastation they had witnessed even on the outskirts of the meteor shower was truly horrible: Susan was particularly heartbroken when she saw a young girl wearing a fairy costume crying after having lost her parents in a fiery impact. Still, they had to determine if this disaster was used by an alien invader to infiltrate this world undetected. They managed to collect a few samples for the General (Susan had to stop Bob from eating them a couple of times), but they found no signs that anything than these glowing green meteorites had entered the atmosphere. Then, when it was starting to get dark and Susan was about to suggest to the General that they call off the search, that's when they struck gold. Close to where a crater was left in the road (and evidence that a vehicle had crashed into said crater) there was a second impact in a nearby field. Unlike the crater in the road (which was obviously made by a meteorite impact) the impact in the field was more uniform and oblong, like the skid marks of an emergency landing.

That seemed to reinforce General Monger's belief that an alien infiltrator had used the meteor shower to hide their arrival from detection by Earth's radar network. However, they couldn't find the ship itself. Instead they found tracks and drag marks that seemed to indicate that it had been dragged off by a tractor. From the depth of the drag marks the "ship" (assuming it really was one) seemed much too small for a full grown alien, more likely either a probe or a vessel for an alien the size of a human child. They weren't able to find where whatever it was was taken to, though, as once the tracks left the field they faded to the point where they became untraceable. A search of the area didn't turn up anything either. The people they had questioned ("they" being Susan and the General, Link and the others stayed out of sight to avoid causing a panic in the already agitated populace) only seemed concerned about the recent disaster and what effect it would have on their harvest, claiming that they saw nothing else "unusual".

When days turned into months and still none of the locals came forth announcing a huge discovery (as the General had expected should have happened, concerning how this disaster had adversely affected this community's economy), Monger became convinced that the alien must have infiltrated the community itself, either by taking the appearance of a human itself or by using some brainwashing technology on the ones that discovered it. In order to discover the truth, General Monger decided that Susan should go undercover herself, but in order to do so she would have to go back to school to finish her degree (she had previously let that go after she and Derek had gotten engaged.) In order to avoid raising the suspicions of the locals (and to avoid the stares of those that might recognize her) Susan opted to take night classes at the university in the next town over rather than to attempt it at the local college. Also, Susan had reasoned, her credentials would look more professional if they came from a university and would be better accepted over someone who had just taken a correspondence course.

The next few years seemed to be the longest in Susan's life. Even though she had once wished that she could get back to a normal life, Susan had not imagined that it would turn out to be so _boring,_ and before it was through she was secretly wishing that some new alien conqueror would set their sights on Earth so that she could get back to smashing it. Fortunately General Monger had set up a post office box that she could receive correspondences through without blowing her cover, and even though it was often months in-between the letters due to the fact that they had to travel halfway across the world Susan had eagerly awaited each and every one.

The first couple of these were about Jonathan and Mavis's wedding. Susan had really wanted to attend, but Drac understood why she would be unable to just pick up and head over just like that, and Mavis was especially supportive of Susan continuing her education. Fortunately Johnny had sent over lots of pictures, but unfortunately Mavis didn't show up in any of them (only her dress was visible). Susan recalled how Mavis had been visible in the mirrors around the castle, as well as Mavis's belief that her kind not showing up in mirrors is just a silly superstition, and she began to wonder if Drac hadn't enchanted the castle's mirrors to allow their reflection to appear.

The next ones were about Mavis finding out that she was pregnant then about Dennis' birth. Susan was as proud as though Mavis was her own daughter, and truth be told she did care for her as if she was. Now Dennis did show up in the photos, which confirmed to Susan that he inherited his father's human heritage. However, Davis did appear rather blurry in those photos, but whether that was because he had a little monster in him or if it was the product of an amateur photographer Susan wasn't sure.

The next few letters were largely about the challenges the new couple were facing as new parents, particularly that of raising an apparently human child in a place populated by monsters. Of course they also often asked how she was doing in the heartland, with Mavis and Drac telling her how much they missed her. In one letter Drac (with some input from Dr. Griffin, as it turned out that he was once a scientist) theorized that the radiation from the asteroid that struck her had given her more than size, strength and durability: they believed that it may have slowed her aging process to be a bit closer to that of Drac's and Mavis'. Thinking back to then Susan looked in the mirror and she had to agree that it was possible, for other than the change in hair color she didn't look any older than the day that meteorite had changed her life. Thinking that his input could be useful in this assignment, Susan sent off a small sample of the meteorites back to Griffin with her response. She almost asked Griffin if he wanted to come over and help, as an invisible man could prove useful in tracown an alien in hiding. However, a selfish part of her wanted to keep that part of her life separate from this king done (it had blended a bit too much already the day she and Drac had met.) Besides, she didn't know if Griffin could see without his glasses, and a floating pair of spectacles would have ruined any stealth benefits his invisibility would have afforded him.

Susan sighed and chuckled at the mental image of Griffin trying to be sneaky, then she put her hair up into a bun, remarking at how much older it made her look. She almost decided to leave the glasses behind (which had just regular glass in the place of prescription lenses) as she felt that they were an unnecessary part of her disguise that any intelligent person could see through _. Every little bit helps, I guess,_ Susan reasoned with herself as she reluctantly put them on. Now that she had graduated it was time to begin her assignment. As she packed the last of her belongings she lingered over the latest letter she had gotten. In it Mavis talked about how she had been considering moving out of the hotel in order to better raise Dennis, who was now 5 years old and still apparently human. How Drac had desperately did everything he could think of to get Dennis' fangs to pop out so that Mavis would stay. How she had invited her grandfather Vlad to Dennis's birthday party, which was going to be the last day they would be living at the hotel. And how ultimately how it was that a (now former) friend of "Grandpa Vlad's" had changed everything when he hurt Winnie, causing Dennis to get mad enough that his fangs popped out, how Dennis used his Dhampir (half-vampire) abilities to help his family defend the hotel against the clan of close-minded vampires. Mavis had closed out the letter by letting Susan know that, in the end, Dennis had convinced her to stay.

Folding the letter lovingly she placed before setting it in her suitcase, she then zipped it up and headed out the door to where the rental car was waiting. She supposed that later on today she would have to find an apartment or something that she can rent for the duration of her assignment, but that would have to wait until later. After all, Susan couldn't be late for her first day on the job….that of a substitute teacher at Smallville High.


	2. Chapter 2: Day One

**Day 1**

Susan was feeling rather nervous as she got out of the car, even more so than when she was first set against Galaxar's giant probe droid. She wasn't entirely sure why she was so anxious, though. After all, she was only responsible for the futures of the young men and women that she was going to be teaching while she was here, that the success or failure of her mission depended on her convincing everyone that she was actually here to be a teacher, that if she was unable to discover the whereabouts of the alien invader (assuming that there really was one) or the probe droid that had arrived during that huge meteor storm (which this neck of the woods was famous for now) then this world could be caught off guard by an alien invasion that they are not prepared for.

 _Okay, it's official: I'm doomed!_ Susan thought to herself before shaking her head and admonishing herself, _Get ahold of yourself, Susan! You've prepared for this for 5 years, if you don't count the 3 years prior to getting engaged with Derick, and even have the degree to prove it. Now toughen up and get in there!_ As she approached the entrance she saw kids either entering the building or milling around it, but her eyes was drawn to an unusual grouping (at least it was unusual back when she was in high school what seems like a lifetime ago): A Caucasian young man with dark hair, tan jacket and red and black backpack, an African-American boy about the same age, and a short-haired blond girl with a serious-looking camera and a look of perpetual curiosity in her eyes, all three of whom were having what seemed like a spirited yet friendly conversation. Of course this grouping of students didn't look like a bad thing to Susan. In fact she was glad that people were so much more progressive in this day and age, especially since she had experienced for herself not too long ago what it's like to be segregated from society for being "different". Susan almost wished that she could hear what they were talking about, but she was here to play the role of a teacher while she attempted to uncover clues as to what happened to the craft that accompanied the meteor shower 5 years ago (as well as its possible occupant), not to eavesdrop on students' random gossip, so she headed off towards the entrance. About that time the dark haired young man also headed toward the school entrance, or rather to where a dark-haired young woman with a blue long-sleeved shirt was talking to a girl with long-blond hair and a letterman's jacket on. When he did Susan saw the other boy from that group take a $5 bill from in his jacket and hold it up as he said "Give him ten seconds." to which the short-haired blond coutered, "Five."

 _Are they betting on their friend?_ Susan thought in disbelief, though the question turned out to be rhetorical as five seconds later the dark haired boy collapsed on the ground, his books scattering everywhere. "Statistical fact:" Susan heard the short-haired blond say to her friend as she took the fiver from him, "Clark Kent can't get within five feet of Lana Lang without turning into a total freak show." _Ouch! That was brutal!_ Susan thought to herself, and in spite of her earlier decision she found herself lingering around as the dark-haired girl (Lana, Susan guessed) helped the boy (Clark?) pick up his books, and as she did she saw that Lana had a necklace with what appeared to be a large cut emerald set in it. Susan wondered how a kid her age could afford something like that, that is until the sensor hidden in her watch detected the unique radiation that came from the asteroids that pulverized this town 5 years ago, which baffled Susan even more.

"Nietzsche," she heard Lana say to Clark as she handed the book back to him, "Didn't realize you had a dark side, Clark."

"Doesn't everybody?" Clark replied to her.

 _Yeah, definitely progressive these days,_ Susan thinks silently. Back in her high school days if she or any of her classmates were found to be reading Nietzsche's works then they would surely be labeled as Nazi sympathizers. Of course Nietzsche wasn't a Nazi himself: he had died before the Nazi movement had even begun, but his sister had inherited her brother's works & she edited them to reflect her own German nationalist ideology before publishing them, those "works" apparently becoming associated with fascism and Nazism until 20th century scholars uncovered and made available Nietzsche's original and unadulterated works.

Recalling that she had a meeting with the principal before she was to go to her first class, she heard Lana ask Clark, "So what are you: man or superman?" to which Clark answered, "I haven't figured that out yet," just as she entered the doors. On her way to the office she saw a creepy young man just staring at a trophy case set in the wall, sliding glass doors keeping others from touching them. It wasn't that the boy looked strange or anything: he looked not much different that any of the other kids his age that Susan passed on the way here. It was the waves of anger and hatred she felt coming off of him as he stared at the case that sent shivers running down her spine. Putting aside her misgivings, as she realized that she would have to deal with students like that too, Susan just kept walking until she entered the principal's office.

"You're late," Principal Kwan said sternly, his disapproving glare looking even more severe on his oriental features. The fact that he was head of his school only served as further proof that things had changed greatly from when Susan was a teen, when a person of possible Japanese descent being a principal in this country would have been unthinkable. However, these thoughts were the last things Susan wanted to focus on as she gave Kwan her best apologetic look as she said, "Sorry about that, sir. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up taking the long way here."

"Well see to it that it doesn't happen again," Kwan admonished her, "I consider myself firm but fair. I don't expect any more from my students than I do my teachers or myself. I want them to be on time, to get their homework completed and to not cheat or take shortcuts, and to avoid doing anything to disrupt the learning environment for everyone else. The same goes for you."

"Yes sir!" Susan responded smartly. Principal Kwan's mannerisms had reminded her so much of the General that she nearly saluted him as well, though she thankfully caught herself before she did. Kwan must have picked up on that, however, as he asked her curiously, "Former military?"

"You can kinda say that," Susan conceeded, "I took some ROTC in high school, then I finished my term in the Coast Guard."

Kwan raised an eyebrow as though he was impressed with her response, and Susan was glad that General Monger had the foresight to include those details in the papers that Kwan was reading through now. In fact the only part that wasn't cooked up by the General's people was her degree (though she had to get it under a false name), but she was assured by him that they would all check out if Kwan or anyone else were to run a check on it. "Well you certainly had gotten some good marks," Kwan commented aloud, "and you have some impressive references as well. From what I can tell you could have easily gotten a teaching position somewhere, so why apply as a substitute?"

"Maybe I could have applied for a full-time position," Susan agreed, "But it's been my experience that many places value experience over pure book learning, and I felt it would be not much different here. Of course it would make sense: it wouldn't make any difference how well versed you are in the different techniques if you choke under the pressure of teaching actual people. In my opinion, working as a substitute both provides valuable experience that you just can't get in a classroom as well as proves to both potential employers and to myself whether or not I can handle taking the position on full-time yet."

"Good answer," Kwan said, looking impressed, "Well I don't see any real issues here, at least as long as we see eye-to-eye on the punctuality issue."

"Absolutely," Susan answered with confidence.

"Then welcome to Smallville High," Kwan said as he stood from his desk and extended his hand to her, which she firmly grasped and shook as Kwan continued, "Let me show you to your classroom."

Exiting the office, Susan and Kwan came up,on the trophy display case again. The strange boy was nowhere in sight, instead she saw a couple of teachers sweeping up broken glass from it as there was now a huge hole in it. "What is this?" Kwan asked crossly, "What happened here?"

"Someone broke into the trophy case," one of the teachers told him, though he seemed to her to be stating the obvious, "strange thing is that the only thing missing is a framed photo of members of our football team that played the Homecoming game five years ago."

"Any idea as to who did this?" Kwan asked them, his irritation barely contained.

The other teacher shook her head regretfully as she said, "We heard the glass break, but by the time we got here whoever did it was long gone."

"I might have some idea as to who," Susan volunteered. As Kwan and the others turned towards her she continued, "Granted I didn't actually see him break in, but on my way to your office I saw this strange boy staring at it and not in an admiring way. I'm new around here so I don't know who he was, but if I saw him again I know I would recognize him."

"That would be helpful, Ms. Gail," Kwan said to her, then nodding to the other teachers he continued to lead Susan down the hall. "You will be teaching Mrs. Morris' 9th grade English class, as she was abruptly called away for a family emergency, though she seemed unable to give me an approximate return date," Kwan explained as they walked. Of course Susan knew that the "family emergency" was a lie, just an excuse Monger's people had cooked up for Mrs. Morris to give Susan an in here. However, even though the General was covering for the teacher with false contact numbers in case anyone from the school tried to contact her during the assignment, as well as verifiable paperwork to show them (if need be) once she returned, Mrs. Morris still seemed rather reluctant to leave her students in the care of a relative rookie until Susan assured her that they would be in good hands. Still, Susan felt a bit nervous as Kwan handed her a packet and said, "Here is her course planner. Feel free to make adjustments to it if you need to, but keep notes if you do so that Mrs. Morris can pick up where you left off when she returns."

"Thank you," Susan said as she accepted it from him.

"And relax," Kwan told her, "First class is always the hardest, but I'm sure someone like you will have no trouble getting them back in line. If anyone Does give you too much trouble, however, then just send them to me and I'll take care of it."

"I will," Susan told him, "Thanks."

Kwan gave her a small smile as he said, "Go get 'em."

Giving him a nod, Susan took a deep breath, then she turned and entered the room. The room was already full of students, most of which were talking amongst themselves or fiddling with their various electronic devices. Only a few of those here took notice of her arrival, among those she recognized the blond girl who had bet against her friend Clark. Susan turned to the blackboard and wrote her name (or rather the name she was given for this assignment) "Susan D. Gail" upon it, suppressing a smile as she did so. She supposed that Monger and the others had a good laugh when they come up with it, but Susan liked it. It was particularly fitting with this assignment being in Kansas, she just hoped she could avoid any tornadoes while she was here: if she got whisked to any far-off lands her friends would never let her hear the end of it.

Turning back to the classroom Susan said aloud, "Good morning everyone! My name is Susan Gail, but you can call me Susan. I'll be your English teacher while Mrs. Morris is on leave. While I am here to teach you, I do not feel that it should be a miserable experience to be dreaded. So as long as…" Susan trailed off as she realized that the class was largely not paying attention to her. Even some of those who had taken note of her arrival had seemed to lose interest (the blond girl being one of the few exceptions that were still listening). While she may have wanted once to get back to a "normal" life, being flat-out ignored was one insult that she couldn't herself ignore, particularly since this group of young people was supposed to pay attention to her.

"HEY!" Susan yelled as she slammed her hand on her desk, the loud, sharp sound chasing away all conversation as the student body turned their eyes towards her, many of their mouths hanging open. Susan cold have sworn that she had heard the room's windows rattle in their frames when she had hit her desk, and when she lifted her hand she notices a small crack in the thick, wooden surface where she hit it _. Rein it in, Susan!_ she admonished herself. Aloud she said, "If you think that we're being too formal here, or that you already know everything that I can possibly teach you, then I suppose you can instead call me Mrs. Gail, and we could begin with a pop quiz to see just how prepared you actually are?" Many of the students let out groans at this news, and Susan cocked an eyebrow as she said, "No? Then settle down and turn to the start of Chapter One of your textbooks." As the students obediently followed her instructions Susan went back to her desk to go over Mrs. Morris' course planner. Sitting down she saw that a few of the students would give her curious glances, but one in particular was practically scrutinizing her over the top of her book whenever she thought Susan wasn't looking: Clark Kent's blond friend. She wasn't particularly sure what it was that had caught this girl's attention or why, but Susan was determined to be more careful from now on. Until she had located the alien object and its possible occupant, the last thing she needed the people of Smallville to find out was that Ginormica was hidden in their midst as a high school teacher.

* * *

Susan breathed a sigh of relief when the last bell rang. Thankfully there wasn't any more incidents, nor had anyone asked her any uncomfortable questions about the incident in her first class (though the one girl, whom Susan learned was Chloe Sullivan from the class roster, had taken longer than the rest to get moving to her next class, like she was expecting Susan to do something else.) Before she could leave for the day, however, Susan had to go see Principal Kwan for one more meeting. This one was mainly just him asking if she was settling in ok (she was), though he was curious if she had again seen the boy who vandalized the trophy case (she hadn't.) Since it was the weekend & her next class wasn't until Monday anyway, Susan asked him if she could leave her car parked in the lot while she went and stretched her legs for a bit. He assured her it would be fine, but he went on to warn her that "Homecoming" was this weekend, & with the big game and the dance both getting the students extra riled up she might find her car with a few unwanted "accessories" if she left it unattended too long. She thanked him for the info, then she left the school grounds and broke into a brisk jog.

She wasn't sure how long it was, but before she knew it she found herself at a bank by a bridge crossing a huge river. The scenery was so peaceful here that gave into the unconscious urge to sit for a moment. Utterly relaxed, a number of thoughts crossed her mind, the first and largest of these was just what it was that she was doing here? The simple answer to that would likely be that she wanted to do something more for this planet than just being sent in to smash whatever invader that had targeted Earth this month or to stop the rampage of whatever monster that was out and about in the open. Yes it was General Monger that had given the assignment to her, but she could have turned him down by stating the fact that she had no skill in subterfuge (even less than she had in teaching, at least there she had SOME schooling before her "Ginormica" days.) Now she was beginning to regret her eagerness. She had no idea as to where to start looking for clues as to the alien artifact's current location, no idea as to who to ask about it, and how would she do any of this without raising the locals' (and possibly the alien's) suspicions and blowing her cover? She reasoned with herself that it was only the first day, much too soon to declare this mission a failure and to ask Monger to send someone else here to take her place, but that didn't make her anymore confident in her ability to complete it.

Still it was rather peaceful here. She thought it might be nice if she could bring Drac and Mavis here to see it for themselves, though she wasn't sure if that was even possible. Susan had learned from one of her letters that Mavis had some super-strong sunblock that allowed her to go out during the daytime now and not burst into flame, but Susan was worried that it wasn't quite strong enough for a place as bright and open as this. Still, at the very least she could take some pictures to send back to them. Susan took the camera out of her purse (whose hidden compartment contained the same high-tech cuffs that had been placed on her back at the hotel, now repaired by the new alien ally on their team), but before she could take a shot she noticed something odd on the viewfinder screen.

Increasing the camera's zoom and the focus, she saw that Clark Kent was leaning against the railing in the middle of the bridge, looking just as contemplative as she had been just a moment ago. _I guess that he comes out here to do some thinking too,_ Susan reasoned to herself. As she watched a truck drove past him & a bundle of what appeared to Susan to be razor wire fell out of it, unspooling as it rolled across the asphalt. Realizing that it would be a dangerous road hazard if left as it was, Susan walked up to the bridge in order to take care of it. Maybe this Clark would help her (though she wouldn't need it, being super-strong and all, though she'd take it to keep her cover intact) and she could use that as a conversation ice-breaker. Perhaps she might even manage to get some info that would help her succeed in her assignment?

Before she could reach the bridge, however, a silvery-grey Porsche blasted past her driving way too fast, forcing Susan to dodge out of the way to avoid getting hit (though it would likely be the car and the driver that would get hurt in that collision, not to mention that it would blow her cover for sure.) The man driving must have been distracted or something, though, as he didn't even swerve or anything until he was practically on the hazard. Going too fast to stop or dodge it, the car drove over the bundle and Susan heard the squeal of the ruined tires as he lost control of his vehicle. Her heart then went into her throat as she saw the car smash dead-center into Clark as it plowed through the side rails and plunged into the river below.

Once the shock wore off Susan made her way down the embankment, stripping off all but her innermost layer of clothes (which she wore over her Ginormica jumpsuit) on the way. It might be too late for Clark Kent, whose young life was surely cut short by that collision, but at the least she can possibly save the driver so that he can live to atone for his stupid actions, even if she revealed herself and failed the mission entirely in the proccess. As she reached the bottom as was about to leave the treeline, however, Susan was shocked to see Clark pop up to the river's surface, alive and swimming to the shore as he dragged the unconscious driver with him. Her shock and confusion only deepened as Clark, looking utterly unharmed in spite of what just happened to him, flipped the driver (who, despite his bald head, looked as young as Clark was) onto his back and began performing CPR on him until the driver vomited up river water. Once the young driver caught his breath he looked up at his rescuer in confusion and said, "I could have sworn that I hit you."

Clark, looking a little winded himself, responded to the young man's query saying, "If you did, I'd be….I'd be dead."

 _But he DID!_ Susan's mind practically screamed even as it tried to make sense of what she just witnessed, _He DID hit you, and you SHOULD be dead!_ But what did it mean? Not only did Clark survive a 60+ MPH impact and a 30 foot fall into the river below, but he also didn't seem to have a single bruise or cut to show for it! Sinking back silently into cover to retrieve her clothes, a thousand different possibilities ran through her mind with one likelihood presenting itself most strongly to her. It was impossible, of course, for the kid was too human for it to be true, his attempt to talk to talk to Lana Lang most pathetically so. However, despite the sheer improbability of her hypothesis, Susan found herself unable to discount it completely: Could Clark Kent be, in actuality, the alien she was here searching for?


	3. Chapter 3: Suspects

**Suspects**

Susan watched as the authorities questioned Clark and the young man who had "almost" hit him, though she knew that he had actually collided. Of course if she hadn't witnessed the accident herself she might have believed the report the young men gave them too, as Clark had no visible injuries the tears of his clothes could have any number of explanations. None of them asked her anything, however, due to her observing them while hidden up in a tree. Rather than putting her civilian attire back on, Susan had stripped off her last layer and activated the stealth function Dr. Cockroach had upgraded her Ginormica uniform with (with the assistance and advanced technology provided by their newest ally, and Dr. Cockroach's newest crush, the alien technician Arinn Lonjubh who had defected to their side after helping Drac "convince" her former commander to abandon her efforts to conquer Earth.) She wasn't sure she fully understood the technical aspects of how it worked, but apparently the "cloaking" technology took the image of what was behind her and projected it on her suit's front, rendering her effectively invisible to the casual observer. Of course this effect is dramatically lessened if she moved too much or too often, and it did nothing for the exposed parts of her body (like her face and, if she removed her gloves, her hands) but she figured that with her laying on top of the branch clear up here it wasn't likely that anyone would notice. From the look of envy that General Monger gave her as she began it Susan wondered if he wished that he could go on this assignment himself just so that he could use the suit. However, they both knew that was impossible as Monger was as subtle as a sledgehammer to the head. Besides, the suit's technology was powered entirely by the excess energy given off by the Quantonium flowing through her body, which meant that nobody else could possibly use it anyway.

Susan lost track of how long she had been watching the authorities before someone new showed up. Focusing on the newcomer with her binoculars (which were equipped with a microphone powerful sensitive enough to listen in on conversations just as distant) she saw a greying older man getting out a red truck that looked as well cared for as it was well used. Dressed in an unbuttoned brown denim jacket, a multicolored flannel shirt (also unbuttoned) and a white t-shirt, the man ran down the slope so fast that he skidded a bit when he stopped at the bottom where he looked both ways along the riverbank until he spotted Clark apparently shivering where he squatted wrapped up in a red blanket.

"Clark!" the man hollered as he ran up to him looking concerned, "Son, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Clark assured the man who must be his father. Looking at the two of them, how alike they were in appearance and mannerisms, Susan concluded that Clark MUST be his son (in other words, human) and she felt really silly for thinking even for a minute that he was an alien. Unless, of course, Clark had the ability to change his appearance too, but that seemed a strange amount of trouble to go through for so little reward. If he could make himself look like anyone, then why a clumsy, awkward teenager instead of someone large and in charge? Also, if he were an alien, then why did he risk exposure by not only rescuing the driver but also waiting around there until the place was swarming with emergency workers? If he wanted to remain hidden all he had to do was let the boy drown.

 _Maybe he's one of the good aliens, like Arinn?_ Susan reasoned with herself, but her musings were cut short as she heard Clark's father ask the sheriff somewhat angrily, "Who's the maniac that was driving that car?"

"That would be me," the young driver (with a similar red blanket draped around his shoulders) introduced himself from the opposite direction of which Clark's father was glaring, "Lex Luthor." This wasn't the first time Susan heard him say his name, as she had witnessed as the two young men made their reports to the Sheriffs earlier, but she was no less shocked the second time around. Neither she nor Monger had come across the infamous Luthors during their initial investigation, who were equated with modern-day robber barons and apparently had interest in the lands around here, but after looking for information online she was glad that they never crossed paths: Lionel Luthor looked very much like he could be twirling his mustache and cackling evilly as he tied a maiden to the railroad tracks, or like someone she'd encounter at the crossroads as he offered her her heart's desire in exchange for her soul. Maybe it was the lack of hair or the look of gratitude he gave Clark, but to Susan Lex looked as much like a Luthor as Clark looked like an alien (i.e. not at all.)

Clark's dad look as though he recognized the name, but he ignored Lex's outstretched hand as he stripped off his jacket and said curtly, "I'm Jonathan Kent. This is my son."

Susan didn't know if he was still in shock over what happened to him, but Lex apparently ignored the off-handed insult as he turned to Clark and said, "Thank you for saving my life."

"I'm sure you would have done the same," Clark told him as his father started to walk him to the truck. As they started to climb up the embankment, Lex asked them, "You have an extraordinary boy there, Mr. Kent. If there's any way I can repay you?"

At this, Mr. Kent stopped, turned around and, in a tone that sounded more like a stark criticism, replied, "Drive slower." Lex nodded in acknowledgement as what appeared to Susan to be a wry smile crossing his face, and as the Kents drove off Susan let the binoculars hang from her neck as she relaxed on her perch. _I really jumped the shark on this one,_ Susan admonished herself with a silent laugh, _It couldn't be more obvious that Clark Kent's no alien, he's as human as they come. It must have been the tension and anxiety from the heat of the moment that had me seeing the Luthor kid hit him dead on at 60 mph. Most likely he just grazed him, the side mirror possibly getting snagged on one of the straps of Clark's backpack or something._ Susan heard the whirring whine of the crane fishing Lex's car out of the river, and when she turned to look her eyes goggled and her mouth fell open as she thought, _Then again..._

Pulling out her binoculars for a better look, Susan saw the front end was crumpled somewhat and the hood popped open. That was only to be expected from an accident like this however. What she was NOT expecting, though, was the damage to the windshield and the roof of the car. If part of the side railing had flew into the windshield and broke it Susan could understand that. Instead the windshield remained largely intact save for a small section towards the middle of the top which was missing. Susan had replayed the accident many times in her head, mainly due to her regret that she let her need for secrecy keep her from preventing what could have been a very tragic accident, but what all those reexaminations revealed to her was at no time before the car hit the water had the roof suffered damage like that. Even if there was something in the riverbed that could have peeled the roof back like a sardine lid, what Susan had learned in her required Physics class told her that hitting the water's surface would have killed much of the momentum the car would have had left after smashing though the bridge's siderails, and therefore there wouldn't have been enough left for said object to pop the car's top. Of course Susan could have performed such a feat herself, and she had been planning to do earlier when she had raced down the embankment to save Lex. However, she would have needed to go most of the way Ginormica to do so, and the transformation would have caused more damage to the windshield than what she was seeing (as her fingers would have been bigger.) That only begged the question: Who, or more appropriately what, could have done that?

Unfortunately she had no opportunity to find out if her conclusions were correct, not with the Sheriff's Department swarming around the area. Even if she maintained her suit in cloaked mode her face would be visible to all, not to mention that it's hard to maintain invisibility while moving (as she'd appear to be a rippling in the air.) She wasn't even able to follow Lex Luthor to find out what he knows because the place was still busy when a limo came to pick him up (of course a kid like Lex would have a limo as his other car.) In fact by the time the sheriffs wrapped up their investigation and cleared out enough for Susan to slip out unnoticed her legs had fallen asleep from being up in the tree for so long, and considering that the Quantonium flowing through her veins gave her above-average stamina even in her human-sized form that's saying something.

The trail on her only leads gone cold, her mind filled with more questions than answers, Susan walked back to her car before driving to the hotel she was staying at. She had no solid evidence that Clark Kent was an alien, only coincidence and her own witness which may have been mistaken, and those could just as easily point to Clark being a monster like her. After all the meteorites that blasted this community do indeed emit a radiation much like the Quantonium meteor that turned Susan into Ginormica a lifetime ago. Therefore it wasn't unreasonable to think that the meteors around here might have given Clark Kent his own fantastic abilities, but she would have to wait for the results of the meteors' analysis from either General Monger's people or from Dr. Griffin to find out for sure if that was possible. Also, if Clark really WAS an alien then wouldn't his "father" Jonathan Kent know? With a sigh, Susan locked the room's door behind her and did her best to quiet the questions in her mind as she settled into her bed to go to sleep.

* * *

Susan wasn't sure how long she had slept, but it didn't feel like it was long enough when she was woken up by the sound of her phone ringing. From the ringtone she could tell that it was General Monger calling her from an encrypted line that won't show up on any official phone records (even the phone was set up to erase the call from its own history.) Susan groaned, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then rolled over and grabbed her phone and hit the answer button as she said, "Susan here."

"Morning, Ginormica," General Monger said in an upbeat tone, "How are we today?"

"Alright, I suppose," Susan told him, "and it's 'Susan', sir. I'm supposed to be undercover after all."

"Oh it's fine, Ginormica," Monger responded dismissively, "This line's encrypted after all, nobody can possibly overhear us and blow your cover."

"But it's still good practice to not break character, sir, as…" Susan sighs as she pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration before continuing, "Anyway, what was the reason you were calling today, sir?"

"I was wondering if you've had any luck on your mission yet, Ginormica?" Monger asked her.

"Nothing solid," Susan told him more than a bit reluctantly, "It's little better than a hunch, but I may have a lead on where to look for our needle in this haystack."

"Well as it turns out I may have something a bit more substantial for you, Ginormica," Monger informed her, "It seems that last night some former jock-turned-grease monkey got himself put into a coma. The investigating authorities apparently believe that it was an accident, electrocution by faulty equipment or some such, but I got them to agree to let you take a look so long as you take care to not mess up their crime scene."

"If they've already decided that it was an accident then why do they still consider it a 'crime scene'?" Susan asked him in confusion.

"That, Ginormica, is the million dollar question," Monger responded heavily.

"You don't think that it was an accident, do you sir?" Susan said in realization.

"Not on your life, Ginormica," Monger told her, "The guy wasn't found near any electrical equipment or outlets, not to mention that the guy apparently was a player in the Homecoming game, and was in the victory parade, the day of the meteor shower. I'll bet that there's a possibility the guy saw something back then, something our alien wants kept quiet."

"But why wouldn't he, she, or it have gone after the guy back then?" Susan asked him, "Why only silence him now?"

"If you recall, Ginormica, things were pretty crazy back then, and I bet that they were even more chaotic during the meteor shower itself," Monger reasoned, "The place was crawling with emergency workers as well special investigators like ourselves, the alien would have exposed itself for sure if it went after the guy back then. It's possible that by the time things settled down that it could come out of hiding it had lost track of the guy it took this long for it to track him down again, though it's just as likely that something else had spooked it into going after the guy now."

Susan doubted that it was Clark, partly because it didn't fit in with what she believed she witnessed the other day but also because if he was as old as he appeared to be he wouldn't likely remember the guy from back then. Of course that was assuming that he even was the alien they were looking for. "You don't suppose it was me, do you sir?" Susan asked in concern, "That it might have recognized me from back when we were asking around for information back then, that my return spooked it into cleaning up its mess?"

"Hope not, Ginormica. That would make tracking it down a bit more problematic," Monger told her, "For now I just want you to check out the crime scene, find out if it was our ET who'd done it. We can think about the whole 'Why now?' question later."

"Affirmative, sir," Susan agreed.

"And Ginormica? You may want to wear the other outfit we'd put together when you go," Monger suggested, "While we may not want to clue the alien or anyone who might be working with it that 'Ginormica' is back in town, neither do we want anyone to associate 'Ms. Gail the schoolteacher' with the one investigating these incidents."

Susan looked over at the bag in question, doubt that it would serve as an adequate enough disguise to serve that purpose creeping into her mind, but she did her best to chase those doubts away as she said "Yes sir!" before hanging up the phone.

* * *

A couple hours later Susan was walking into the mechanic's shop, the officers still standing outside barely giving her a second glance after she flashed her badge at them, but that didn't stop Susan from feeling rather ridiculous in this outfit. The suit itself was a little stiff though otherwise alright, but the mirrored shades felt like an unnecessary addition that, in her mind, made her stand out like a sore thumb. The glasses with the clear non-prescription lenses she wore at school were only marginally better, and yet nobody here or there seemed to recognize her as Ginormica. Could a simple piece of eyewear truly be so effective as a disguise?

Of course there was more to the disguises than glasses and the outfits. At school she wore her hair up in a tight do, while here she had it bound in a simple, unbraided ponytail that hung straight down between her shoulder blades. In addition she did her best to present herself with her expressions and posture as warm and caring, someone that the students can trust in enough to come to her for anything, the instance where she had to reign that first class in being the sole exception (Susan cringed at how close she came to going too far and completely blowing her assignment here). Here, however, she chose to let the stiffness of her suit be her guide, her stance and gait echoing that of General Monger. She just hoped that those differences would keep others from realizing that Smallville High's newest substitute teacher was investigating these incidents in her off hours.

Looking around the area it appeared to be a mechanic's garage like all the others, though some of those in the bigger cities like Metropolis had more high-tech diagnostic equipment in theirs. The main thing that detracted from the others was the trailing scorch marks waving over one wall and a third of the surface of the nearby floor and ceiling, signs that would indicate a severe electrical failure of some sort. Following one of those trails found that the cord connecting one of the car lifts to its remote had its insulation burned through and its wiring exposed. Now to the untrained eye it would appear that this was the source of the catastrophe, But Susan could tell (thanks to the "required" extracurricular classes she had to take to graduate) that the burn patterns were completely wrong. The insulation here was burned from the outside in, whereas in an faulty cord the insulation would be burned worse on the surface closest to the break. In addition, while she didn't know much about the specs of this equipment she was sure that the lift's remote wouldn't carry enough current to do this much damage, and even if it did the damage would be radiating out from here rather than leading to here.

Returning to the wall that seemed to be the focal point of the electrical burns, Susan saw that there was indeed nothing there that could have caused this, just as the General suggested. There was a drill press and some odds and ends on either side of the epicenter of this disaster, but none of them would have carried a high enough charge to do this. She supposed that there could have been something here before that's gone now, but why would someone steal a faulty piece of equipment?

Bending low to one of the scorch marks on the floor, Susan first looked around to make sure that none of the officers were looking in on her, then she pulled up on the right sleeves of her suit and her undershirt to expose the sleeve of her Ginormica outfit and the scanner that was recently added to it by their alien ally. While it was rather high tech and low profile, not even causing a bulge when she was wearing some of her more tight-fitting garments over it, it also had a regrettably short range of about 4 feet. Still Susan found no reason to complain as it, like the cloaking system she employed the other day, ran off the excess energy radiated by the Quantonium in her body. Looking at the readout that appeared on top of her arm, she saw the scanner confirm that the scorches were caused by electrical burns. However, what she found most curious was that the scorches also seemed to contain what appeared to be traces of human DNA. Given that the former jock was electrocuted here that wasn't too surprising, but Susan believed that if he was shocked so badly that his DNA was burned into the walls and floor that he would be dead rather than in a coma. She doubted that she would be able to see whether or not the DNA was his, though. While Monger might have been able to pull some strings to get Susan into the crime scene, she was sure that getting her permission to visit the victim at the hospital was beyond even his capabilities, so she saved the data and uploaded it to the cloud servers in the event that the opportunity presented itself later.

Standing up to take one last look around Susan finds her gaze drawn towards some shelves mounted on the wall, just left of the scorch pattern. There wasn't anything electrical on them that she could see, mainly just some slightly dusty trophies and medals (an ex-jock's shrine to his glory days), but Susan felt the urge to take a closer look anyways. There, amongst the narcissistic keepsakes, was a framed photograph. The picture within was hard to make out due to the badly fractured glass, but there was still something familiar about it as she passed her wrist scanner over it. Watching as the system analyzed it and made adjustments for the distortions caused by the broken glass, Susan took a sharp breath between her teeth as she suddenly recognized where she saw it: it was the same photograph in the school's trophy case that one creepy kid was staring at, the photo that was stolen after the case was broken into. The frame was definitely different, but the picture was exactly the same! What was that picture doing here? On a hunch she had the analyzer compare the faces of the kids in the picture with the photo General Monger had sent her of the victim. The analyzer confirmed with 99.47% certainty that the victim was one of the boys in the photo. Fingering the communicator in her hear, Susan said softly, "General, this is Susan. Are you there?"

"I'm here, Ginormica," Monger confirmed, "Tell me you've got something good."

"It looks like your hunch about this not being an accident may be correct," Susan reported, "It's a little soon to tell if the culprit is alien or monster, but the damage here doesn't look to be caused by any of the devices here at the scene, nor by any human technology that I'm aware of existing."

"You think the attacker might have been a monster?" Monger asked her.

"It's possible," Susan told him, "If the radiation from the meteors here have similar properties to the one that changed me, then it's possible that some kid empowered by them might decide to use his new-found gifts to get some payback on this guy and his mates."

"A kid, Ginormica?" Monger asked her in confusion.

"Yes, sir, I believe so," Susan confirmed, "Yesterday, on my way to meet with Principal Kwan I saw a young man staring at a photo in the school's trophy case, and not in an adoring way. After the meeting we found that the case was broken into, the picture apparently the only thing missing. I found an identical photo here at the scene, and the scanner identified the victim as one of the kids in it. I'm going to transmit it to you now, can you have your people identify the other kids in it? If I'm correct about this attack being motivated by revenge, then there's a chance one of the others could be next."

"We'll get on it right away," Monger assured her, "Any idea as to who that boy is?"

"Afraid not," Susan told him, "I didn't see him in any of my classes yesterday, nor had I seen him again after my initial arrival. At this point the only lead we have on him is that photograph, that his sense of 'justice' won't be satisfied with just the one assault."

"Well we'll get it done as quickly as possible and get back with you," Monger told her, "What will you be doing in the meantime?"

"I was going to head back to the hotel to go over the data I gathered today as well as to work on my syllabus for this coming week," Susan informed him, "Then tomorrow I'd planned on following up on another possible lead."

"Wasn't Dr. Cockroach helping you with your syllabus?" Monger asked her in confusion.

"He is, but I need to go over it to make sure that it fits in with the class's current curriculum, that it doesn't contain any 'mad scientist' quirks that might make the students and their parents wary of me," Susan explained, "That's the whole point of me going undercover, isn't it? To get them to trust me and lower their guard?"

"That's correct, Ginormica," Monger confirmed, "In that case I wish you luck, but keep your line open. I'd rather get this thing taken care of as quickly and quietly as possible."

"Me as well," Susan agreed, "Susan out." She then tapped the disconnect and turned to exit the garage.

* * *

By the time she had gotten back to the hotel her enthusiasm for going over the class syllabus had pretty much drained away, for even though she had found the task of teaching the students to be more fun and engaging than the homework she had to do in collage to learn how to do so, preparing or even reviewing a prepared syllabus to do the same proved to be as dull and boring as the aforementioned homework. Therefore she found it to be a great relief when she saw no problems with the syllabus Dr. Cockroach had faxed her earlier. In fact his syllabus looked to be so well prepared that she wondered if he wouldn't have been a better pick to go undercover as a teacher (if his head wasn't that of a giant cockroach, that is.) Of course she shouldn't have been surprised by this, Dr Cockroach had been a well accomplished human scientist before the fateful experiment that gave him that cockroach head. But the thought that he might be good with kids still seemed rather out there to her. At the very least he was good at filing lesson plans for those who taught kids.

With her night freed she took a look at the data her scanner gathered for her of the DNA found at the scene. Upon closer examination Susan found that it appeared ALMOST human, with certain areas distorted and looking rather inhuman. However, whether that was because the radiation detected within the sample had caused a mutation within the human DNA or because alien DNA was altered to more closely resemble human she didn't know. She figured that only someone who devoted their life to science like Dr. Griffin or Dr. Cockroach had would know for sure. This made Susan curious as to what her own DNA looked like now. She pushed up the sleeve on one arm and aimed her wrist-mounted scanner at it, but before she activated it she froze. She didn't know why it mattered to her as she thought she made peace with who she is now, but suddenly Susan wasn't that eager to see how much her own DNA did or did not look human nowdays, so she pushed her sleeve back down and crawled into bed.

* * *

The next day Susan found herself with nothing to do as school didn't resume until tomorrow and she was still waiting on the results from Monger's people, so Susan decided to proceed with the investigation of her own lead. Of course she hadn't had a chance to contact Principal Kwan, and even is she had she hadn't yet come up with a reason for wanting to find out Clark Kent's address that didn't unnecessarily paint him in a bad light. Fortunately for her the young man who "almost" hit Clark, Lex Luthor, was much easier to locate, so it wasn't long before she found herself staring in disbelief at the huge mansion the young man was staying at. It wasn't as big as Drac's hotel, certainly wasn't as tall, but the castle-like hotel fit in better with the Transylvanian landscape it was situated in than this piece of architecture did here. Also Drac had no shortage of monstrous guests at any time staying at his hotel. Although this residence was listed under Lionel Luthor, however, other than the servants the only one apparently living here was his son Lex. Susan couldn't even imagine what she would do with a place this big or to have that many people working for her: maybe she would turn it into an orphanage or perhaps her own classy hotel like Drac's (though she knew little about running either.)

As she stood there, Susan tried to come up with a reason for her visit to give the young master of the house. Neither she nor General Monger had been able to question either young Lex or his father Lionel Luthor during their initial investigation as they were notoriously unavailable at the time. Reflecting back Susan realized that she shouldn't have been surprised. After all, it turned out that Lex himself had been one of the victims of that meteor shower, apparently been too close to one of the impact sites. She didn't know if it was the trauma of the event or if it was because Lex had been exposed to the meteor's radiation, but Susan had discovered that the boy had a full head of hair before that day and he ended up bald (and stayed bald) mere days after. Of course if Lex had been radiated by the meteors then it was possible that he had abilities that for some reason hadn't manifested themselves yet (or that their immense money had been successful in covering up,) but she couldn't think of a reason that he might have attacked that has-been jock or to pretend to have nearly drowned in his crash, and to ask him about the crash itself might have struck him as odd or suspicious as the local authorities had already questioned him thoroughly that day.

The sound of knocking caused Susan to instinctively duck back into the bushes behind her, and she gaped in disbelief at what she saw. Just what was Clark Kent doing here? As she watched, Clark opened the door and called out, "Hello?" Looking down the fence-line Susan spotted what looked like a brand-new, cherry red Ford truck parked just outside the still closed gate. It looked like the latest model too, not to mention a bit too expensive for any of the struggling farmers around here (who haven't been bought out by someone like Lionel Luthor) to afford, let alone some high-school student like Clark. So how they did they get here, and for that matter how did Clark get inside?

When she turned back Clark had already entered the house, the door closing behind him. Cursing herself for her inaction, Susan quickly stripped down to her jumpsuit, feeling her face burning as she remembered the ribbing Dr Cockroach gave her (and she could have sworn she saw Arinn stifle an amused smile, though it was difficult to determine it the expression meant the same thing to her species) when Susan had told them why she was stuck up in the tree during the investigation of Lex's Porsche. How was she supposed to know that the hood they added to her outfit was able to zip all the way up the front, that she'd be able to see through it and she'd be provided total invisibility? It's not like things like that existed back before she became Ginormica, back when she still dressed "normal". Drawing the zipper up over her face she found it a little stifling as the space inside quickly grew warm from her breath, but she found that she was indeed able to see through it just fine and that she was able to breathe okay too.

Taking a moment to activate her suit's cloaking feature, Susan concentrated and grew until she was large enough to gingerly step over the fence, not because she was afraid of hurting herself on it but because she didn't want to damage it or leave giant footprints in Lex's yard. Once over she shrunk back down to human size again, as she didn't exactly trust the cloaking effect to effectively hide a 40-foot tall woman or to muffle the footsteps of the same, then she got relatively close to the mansion before pulling out her binoculars again and activated the special feature Arinn told her about.

Like her suit's added invisibility she didn't know exactly about how it worked, something about how the binnoculars combined ultrasound mapping and infrared technology, but before she knew it she was seeing through the walls and following the movement what she soon recognized to be Clark walking through and calling out in the mostly empty mansion until he entered a room occupied by two other people. From the metallic clicking sounds and the rapid movements of these two figures, Susan figured out that they were fencing. It didn't last very long, though, as one of them soon got the better of the other, with the loser taking the foil and hurling it like a javelin. Susan winced as she saw it embed itself into the wall mere inches from Clark's head.

"Clark?" the man who nearly impaled Clark called as he removed his protective headgear, whom she recognized from the voice as being Lex, "I didn't see ya."

"I, uh, buzzed, but no one answered," Clark said uncomfortably as Lex pull his foil out of the wall.

"How'd you get through the gate?" Lex asked him, to which Clark answered, "I kinda squeezed through the bars."

 _Yeah, right,_ Susan thought in disbelief, _I'm technically skinnier than you, farmboy, at least when I'm human sized, and I couldn't fit through them._ Susan resisted the urge to check that she hadn't put on any weight as she focused again on the conversation as Clark started to say, "If this is a bad time," before Lex interrupted, "Oh, no, no. I think that Heiki has sufficiently kicked my ass for the day." Lex then tossed his headgear to his opponent, who had removed her headgear as well, as Clark commented, "This is a nice place."

"Yeah?" Lex said ironically, "If you're dead and in the market for something to haunt."

"What?" Clark said in confusion, "I meant, it's roomy."

Susan saw Clark follow Lex into another room, where he stripped off the rest of his fencing gear and asked Clark, "How's the new ride?"

"That's why I'm here," Clark told him, and Susan thought that he sounded a little down.

"What's the matter? You don't like it?" Lex asked him as he draped a towel around the back of his own neck. Suddenly the new truck at the gate made sense to Susan: it must have been a "gift" from Lex to Clark. Of course a rich boy who drives a supercar like a Porsche like Evel Knievel would think nothing of giving a shiny new truck as a thank you present.

"No, it's not that, I can't keep it," Clark told him, and Susan shook her head as realization came to her. It occurred to Susan then that they were talking about the truck by the gate. Of course a rich boy like Lex would think nothing of giving a brand-new truck as a thank-you gift.

"Clark, you saved my life. I think it's the least I can do," Lex said he turned and faced Clark who said nothing in response, just looked down at his own shoes. Lex must have read something in Clark's expression as he guessed, "Your father doesn't like me, does he? It's okay." Lex then turned and looked at what Susan guessed must've been a mirror, running a hand along his head as he said, "I've been bald since I was nine. I'm used to people judging me before they get to know me."

"It's noting personal," Clark assured him, "He's just not crazy about your dad."

 _No wonder, considering all the things I've heard about Lionel Luthor,_ Susan thought to herself as Lex replied, "Figures the apple doesn't fall from the tree? Understandable." He then looks over his shoulder and asks, "What about you, Clark? Did you fall far from the tree?"

For a moment nobody said anything, then Clark hands over what looked to Susan to be a key ring as he said, "I better go. Thanks for the truck. As Clark starts to leave, however, Lex asks, "Clark? Do you believe a man can fly?"

 _What?_ Susan turned her entire focus to the conversation, her interest peaked as Clark said, "Sure, in a plane."

"No, I'm not talking about that," Lex clarified as he fully turned back towards Clark, "I'm talking about soaring through the clouds with nothing but air beneath you."

"People can't fly, Lex," Clark told him, to which Lex countered, "I did. After the accident when my heart stopped. it was the most exhilarating two minutes of my life. I flew over Smallville, and for the first time I didn't see a dead end. I saw a new beginning."

 _He's talking about a near-death experience,_ Susan realized, coming to the understanding that she wasn't going to learn anything pertaining to her mission here today. And she had _such_ a strong feeling about coming here today too. Suddenly feeling intrusive and yet unable to stop eavesdropping, she Heard Lex tell Clark, "We are the future, Clark. And I don't want anything to stand in the way of our friendship."

Finally putting the binoculars down, Susan heard General Monger call out in her suit's communicator, "Ginormica, can you read me? Come in."

Turning her focus away from the mansion, Ginormica fingered the communicator behind her ear and said, "I'm here, General, what's up?"

"I just received a report of another resident being attacked this morning. Same m.o. as the previous one," Monger told her.

 _Dammit! And I've been wasting time here!_ Susan admonished herself. As she made to rush off, however, Susan stopped and asked, "Wait, the _exact_ same m.o.? Is he in the photo too?"

"Uh, yeah," Monger told her, sounding a little surprised, "Billy Richards, he was found in a coma this morning behind his diner. The sheriff is baffled as to how he got electrocuted just by touching his door."

"What about the third guy in the picture?" Susan asked him quickly, not wanting to be overheard by Clark or Lex when they should come out.

"Michael Sommers?" Monger said, "Guy runs a little pawn shop in town, should be there now."

Susan nodded, almost forgetting that he couldn't see her, then she sprinted towards the gate, pulling up short just as Lex and Clark stepped outside.

"What are you going to do?" Monger asked her.

"Get ahead of this guy," Susan told him, keeping her voice low so as to not be overheard, "For whatever reason two of these guys have been attacked, and I don't think they'll simply spare the third. I'm gonna get there and catch this guy, hopefully stop anyone else from getting hurt." Susan then waited until Clark walked out the opened gate and past the truck (apparently Lex hadn't talked Clark into taking the truck back) then she slipped through before it could close again and raced off towards town."

* * *

It seemed like it took forever for her to get here, and even with the extraordinary stamina she got from the Quantonium Susan still felt somewhat winded, but Susan made it to town and was standing before the pawn shop owned by Mr Sommers. Susan had hoped that if she got here during the day, when they were likely to still be open, that this guy wouldn't attack until later and Susan would get a chance to warn him or perhaps set a trap. However, Monger informed her on the way here that the pawn shop doesn't do that much business this time of year, and indeed as she caught her breath she saw no activity inside and even the traffic (both auto and pedestrian) on this street was rather scarce right now. Then, as she watched, she saw the flickering of lights, Susan saw the flickering of lights, detected the smell of ozone, and heard the sounds of screaming coming from inside.

 _Dammit! I'm late! S_ usan silently cursed as she ran inside. There she saw the same young man she saw standing in front of the display case the other day behind the counter holding up a man easily a head taller and nearly twice his body weight, and from the rictus of pain on the older guy's face and the arcs of electricity flowing over them both it soon became apparent that the same thing was happening to him as what happened to the others.

"Stop!" Susan called out, and the young man dropped the guy at his feet, looking at her in confusion as he said, "Who are you?"

Susan couldn't see what weapon he was using. Was he like her, then: empowered by a meteorite? At any rate she needed to diffuse the situation before it got any worse. "My name is Susan," Susan told him, "I don't know why you're doing this, but I can't let you keep hurting these people."

"Don't know why?" The young man responded, "They deserve it! They had this coming for a long time."

Susan saw the pain in his eyes along with the anger, so she spoke calmly and held her hands up placatingly as she approached him very slowly, "I know that you feel that way, but you can't take these things on yourself. Hurting others only serves to make things worse."

"I'm doing this to stop people from being hurt, the way I was," the young man told her, "I wasn't the first, either, but once word gets out now that I've finished hopefully we'll have seen the last."

Susan was baffled as to what this kid was talking about. She had figured that he was probably getting revenge for something that had happened to his folks, but this was sounding more personal than that. Also, from what he was saying something had been going on in this town before even the meteor shower, something that was continuing to this day. Whatever this kid had done, whether it was justified or not, Susan needed answers regardless. reaching out towards him, Susan said gently, "Look, you need help. If you just come with me..."

The moment she made contact with his shoulder her vision lit up, every fiber of her being screaming with pain, but even if she wanted to scream out she wouldn't have been able to with her jaw clamped involuntarily shut. Since she first started over as Ginormica Susan had been dealt all kinds of blows, from alien death rays to high-tech stun batons to actually being stuck by lightning, but nothing affected her like this.

After a couple of seconds that seemed to stretch out for eternity went flying back, as if repelled by a magnet, smashing into some shelves of products near the ceiling an the wall to her right before sliding along it to the floor. _Wow, that smarted,_ Susan thought ironically. The young man looked rather bemused himself as he came to stand before her and said, "You're lucky I don't have anything against you, miss. Now you should do yourself a favor and not follow me. Next time I won't hold back." Then the boy turned and went out the door in the back, the emergency door alarm going off as he did.

Susan didn't follow after him, though she very much wanted to. Unfortunately her arms and legs were still feeling rather rubbery. She could have stood up just fine, but she wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight and would likely have been just smacked down again. The fact that his power was able to work on her so effectively seemed to support her theory that this boy was a meteor-affected human rather than an alien, but she had no evidence to prove it conclusively. Around the time the tingling in her limbs died down she started to hear people milling around outside and the sounds of sirens approaching, and so feeling rather humiliated she picked herself up off the floor and activated her cloak (which flicked a couple of times before staying on) and she limped out the back door.

* * *

 _Okay, Walking around town as a human pretty much blows,_ Susan thought to herself as she pulled into the school staff parking lot, wearied by the whole day. Fortunately she had the foresight to park her car at the edge of town before walking the rest of the way to Luthor's that morning, which wound up saving her the embarrassment of explaining to the estate's security why it was left there. Unfortunately, however, that still meant that she had to walk clear back to where she had parked it before throwing on her civilian clothes again (though she only did one layer this time, just enough to hide her suit, as she figured she might need to change again rather quickly.) Susan had considered driving back to the hotel, but she needed answers now about this kid and she wasn't going to get them there. So after asking a couple of staff where the best place to find information on previous alumni was Susan was directed to the rooms that served as the classroom for the Journalism courses and production area for the school paper and the yearbooks too.

Susan had been prepared to hunt through the yearbooks starting from the year of the meteor shower up though today, but as soon as she entered Susan saw that one yearbook had been left open on one of the tables already. She saw that it was one from the year of the meteor shower, and there on the edge of the page was the young man she'd encountered today. According to the caption his name was Jeremy Creek. and the boy today didn't just look similar to the one in the album, he looked _exactly_ the same. But how could that be? Was the radiation from the meteorites here affecting him in a similar manner to how Dr Griffin theorized the Quantonium was affecting her, slowing down the aging process in addition to providing them their abilities? Or was what she encountered the alien making himself look like, and standing in for, the real Jeremy Creek? Susan needed to find out more.

As she pondered her next step, Susan heard voices approaching, and from the sound it wasn't any of the staff. Feeling like an intruder, Susan once again activated her cloaking as she quickly stripped off her civilian attire (making a mental note to talk with her team about finding a way to cloak that too) and stuff it into her pack, managing to zip it closed and strap it on her back (which cloaked it as well) before the door opened. In came a pair of students, which from her classes with them she recalled being named Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan, Clark Kent's two friends that she say her first day at this school, who right now seemed to be having a rather spirited discussion.

"Sorry, Chloe, but I think your weirdar is off on that one," Pete was saying to her.

"No way," Chloe disagreed, "She hit her desk hard enough to rattle the windows."

"Sounds like you guys really pissed her off," Pete said with a smirk, "When Mr. Arnold gets upset he can make our desks jump and I swear that it gets ten degrees warmer in the room."

"Ms. Gail isn't a football coach," Chloe argued, "Besides, she left a crack in her desk."

Susan groaned silently to herself, grateful that neither of them can see her as Pete reasoned, "Are you sure that the crack wasn't there before?"

Chloe huffed and said, "You're saying that you saw nothing odd about her?"

"She was oddly hotter than the substitutes that we usually get around here," Pete admitted, which had Chloe rolling her eyes.

Susan heard a knock at the door, and she turned her head to look to see Clark Kent enter as he said, "You guys call?"

"Clark!" Chloe said cheerfully, "What's your take on the new English teacher?"

"Ms. Gail?" Clark guessed, "Tough but fair, kind smile. Rather strikes me a bit like Mom."

"Thanks, Clark. Really needed that image in my head," Pete groaned into his hands.

"What's up with him?" Clark asked Chloe.

"Pete has a bit of a crush on Ms. Gail," Chloe stage whispered to Clark, to which Pete protested, "Do not!" which Clark starts laughing. Susan found herself stifling a chuckle too, though she also cringed inwardly at the thought of being the target of teenage hormones. Eventually Pete let a reluctant smile show, and Chloe said, "Sorry for teasing you about the 'hot teacher', but you at least have to admit that the guy this morning was totally weird."

Pete sighed and said, "Yeah, I'll give you that one Clo. Totally Twilight Zone material there."

"What are you guys talking about?" Clark said, looking between his friends.

Chloe went over to the table with the open yearbook and set her laptop next to it, then she pointed her finger at the young man's profile and said, "His name is Jeremy Creek. This is a picture of him 12 years ago," then she pointed at the photo showing on her laptop and added, "This is one I took four hours ago." Susan looked over Pete's shoulder at the laptop and saw that, indeed, the photo was of the young man she caught attacking the former jock at the pawn shop, and the identical appearance to Jeremy Creek's photo in the yearbook cemented her belief that they were one and the same. But why were these kids investigating him? Also it looked like the photo was taken in front of the scene of the crime, but Jeremy had exited out the back. It baffled Susan as to why he would circle back around, then she remembered how Jeremy basically said that he was sending a message with these attacks: did he return to see how people were taking it?

Clark looked baffled as he said, "That's impossible. He'd be like 26 today. Must be a kid who looks like him."

"My money was on the evil-twin theory," Pete told Clark as Cloe walked over to pick up a paper, "till we checked this missing persons."

"Jeremy disappeared from the state infirmary a few days ago where he'd been in a coma for 12 years," Chloe said as she walked back over to them, handing the paper to Clark, "They said he suffered from massive electrolyte imbalance."

"That's why he hasn't aged a day," Pete added.

"So you're telling me he just woke up," Clark asked, to which Chloe answered, "Well, no, there was a huge electrical storm and the hospital's generator went down, and when it came back up Jeremy was gone."

"The electricity must have charged him up like a Duracell," Pete reasoned.

"And now he's back in Smallville putting former jocks into comas. Why?" Clark asked.

"Because 12 years ago today they chose Jeremy Creek as the scarecrow," Pete answered him, the unease Susan heard in his voice telling her that whatever that was wasn't good. Was that how he was hurt, the pain that he was avenging?

Clark picked up a newspaper clipping and began to read aloud, " _Comatose boy found in field 20 yards from meteor strike._ "

"The exposure to the blast must have done something to his body," Chloe guessed. This sounded in line with what both Dr Griffin and Dr Cockroach had theorized about the meteorites' properties, that while the radiation did have mutagenic properties, it still required a catalyst for changes in the DNA to occur (like being electrocuted in a lightning storm.)

"No, this can't be right," Clark said in disbelief, and Pete tapped Chloe on the shoulder and told her, "I think you ought to show him."

Clark looked back and forth between his friends and asked, "Show me what?"

Susan followed as Chloe led her friends into the darkroom, where she saw one wall had been taken over by a huge collage of newspaper articles, many with some rather bizarre and disturbing images and headlines, and Chloe told them all, "It started out as a scrapbook and just kinda mutated."

"What is it?" Clark asked, mirroring Susan's thoughts.

"I call it the Wall of Weird," Chloe answered, "It's every strange, bizarre and unexplained event that's happened in Smallville since the meteor shower. That's when it all began. The town went schizo."

 _All of this...since the meteor shower?_ Susan thought in shock, looking from one horrifying article to another. She knew of the devastation the celestial bombardment caused those who made a living on the land, not to mention the property damage and loss of life, but to think that they might still have resulted in these horrors even years after...

"So what do you think?" Chloe asked as she approached her friends, an anticipatory smile on her face.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Clark asked in an accusatory tone as he made his way around Chloe to get a better look at the wall of horrors.

"Do you tell me everything that happens in your life?" Chloe countered as she walked back around to Clark's side, "We all keep secrets, Clark."

This was all getting to be too much for her, the room itself becoming stifling. While a portion of the articles on the wall were likely made up tabloid tripe, Susan couldn't help but think that more than half of the terrible (and quite possibly true) stories might not have occurred had not Lionel Luthor cock-blocked their efforts to clear the area of the now-obviously harmful meteorites. Monger might still have managed to do so, using his contacts with the heads of state to push on even in spite of the great-and-terrible Luthor's opposition, but the General thought that the search for the suspected alien lifeform and/or artifact was more important, and she...she...

 _I went along with it,_ Susan thought in despair, her gaze fixed on a Time Magazine cover featuring the tearful, soot-dirtied little girl in the fairy costume that she saw the day she arrived in Smallville, _I should have insisted that Monger fight Luthor back on it and clear the meteorites anyways, but I let myself get talked into an alien hunt instead! This...all of this..._

"It's all my fault," Clark said so softly that Susan wasn't sure at first that he'd actually said it, as it echoed her thoughts precisely. Susan knew what fault she had in the stories on that wall, but why would Clark think that he had any responsibility to shoulder here? Then Clark suddenly turned and left the room, and Susan barely managed to get out of the way before he could collide with her cloaked form. Pete and Chloe looked at each other in silence, apparently just as baffled by Clark's words and actions, so Susan took the moment to follow Clark unobtrusively out the door.

* * *

Susan had just about caught up with Clark, who'd exited the school behind a crowd of cheering students (with everything that was going on, Susan had pretty much forgotten about the Homecoming game today.) Clark then turned and started to head down the parking lot when he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. "Chloe, just leave me alone," Clark said as he turned around, but it wasn't Chloe or Pete that stopped him: it was a blond boy in an letterman jacket, one Susan recognized to have hung out with Lana Lang often around school, and the look he was giving Clark was not a friendly one.

"Congratulations, Clark," the boy was saying as he gripped the front of Clark's shirt in both fists, "You're this year's scarecrow."

The word rooted Susan on the steps. Was this guy planning to do to Clark whatever had been done to Jeremy Creek? Apparently Clark was having none of it, however, as he knocked the boy's hands away and said in an irritated tone, "Don't mess with me right now."

The other boy must have had a bone to pick with Clark, however, as he angrily hit Clark in the chest with both hands and yelled, "Come on, bring it on!" as he stripped off his jacket, revealing the dark shirt underneath, looking ready for a fight. This provocation seemed to be one too many for Clark, who came back with a right punch. Before the blow could land, however, Clark inexplicably pulled back at the last instant, and the young man took advantage of Clark's hesitation to throw him to the ground and get on top of him. Susan felt that she should intervene here, but she was still cloaked in her Ginormica outfit, and she didn't see anywhere around here where she could change unobserved.

The angry young man grabbed Clark by the front of his shirt and pull up as he demanded, "What's going on with you and Lana?"

Clark looked as though something was causing him pain, but he kept a defiant tone in his voice as he said, "Nothing."

He didn't look as though he believed Clark, and as he glanced down Susan thought she spotted a glint on the boy's neck. Then her suit's sensors alerted her to the presence of the meteorite's radiation and Susan realized that the boy was wearing Lana's necklace just as he yanked it off and put it on Clark, saying, "You like her necklace? Huh? Good, 'cause this is as close as you're ever gonna get to her." Then two of the boy's lettered buddies came over and helped him throw Clark bodily into the bed of a pickup truck driven by a third. Susan though she spotted someone lurking nearby, but she had no attention to spare them as the boys were preparing to drive off and Susan needed to know what was happening in this town. Taking aim, Susan fired a tracer dart from her sleeve into the truck's fender-well before it roared out of the parking lot. Then, after checking on the GPS display that the tracer was active, Susan hurried over to her car, making sure to de-cloak after she climbed inside, then she started it up and followed after them.


End file.
